


After the Funeral

by Owl_by_Night



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5005849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owl_by_Night/pseuds/Owl_by_Night
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the kink meme.  Grant goes to Arabella's funeral and must cope with a grieving Jonathan and his own feelings for the magician.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this wonderful but sad prompt on the kinkmeme:
> 
> "Is this too morbid? I just want Grant to go to the funeral and be torn between feeling bad because Strange is in so much pain and a bit of something else because (although he doesn't necessarily realise this is the reason) Merlin will never love him as much as he loved her...or will he?"
> 
> I give fair warning, this does not get as far as 'or will he', only the unhappiness that comes hand in hand with funerals and grieving.

A house after a funeral is a strange thing. Ashfair, frozen in harsh winter snow, is even more so. It makes Grant half wish he’d taken a room at an inn instead of bowing to Merlin’s insistence that he stay here. 

The servants have done their best of course, cleaning and tidying and lighting fires everywhere to banish the ghastly mausoleum atmosphere that he’d found when he first arrived. Their care is a cold mockery of a winter festival. No amount of firelight, candlelight or polished brass can lift the sombre mood or brighten the black clothes of those present. Grant, in his red coat, is an awkward point of colour. It makes him feel out of place and garish amid the mourners as they murmur condolences to one another. How sad, how sad. 

When he had arrived, Merlin had been in a dreadful state. His brother-in-law, Henry, had been almost pathetically glad to see another friendly face. Merlin had left all funeral arrangements to him and retreated to his study, spending most of his days staring blankly at the wall. Sometimes he wept, without seeming to notice that he did so. When Grant went to greet him, there was a flicker of something, not quite a smile but a brightening of his eyes, as he said ‘ah, Grant, I’m glad you are here’. He had taken Grant’s hand and squeezed it, tight in his own to hide the trembling. It was familiar, achingly familiar, but not familiar enough. Merlin had looked at their joined hands as though he might kiss them, kiss Grant’s scarred knuckles and the place where their fingers wove together. Then the brightening of his expression was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. 

Over tea, Grant makes polite conversation with an Uncle (Merlin’s or Arabella’s, he isn’t sure which) but their discussion of the war is stilted, weighed down by all the losses it reminds him of. Perhaps he shouldn’t be here. He hardly knew Arabella after all. From what he did know, he liked her. She was a bright and lively woman, who knew her own mind and kept a sharp eye on her husband and his welfare. Grant thinks that if he were a little less familiar with death, he would be shocked that someone so vital should no longer be among the living. 

Someone had to be here though, someone had to drag Merlin up and get him washed and shaved and dressed like Arabella’s husband not a grieving, half mad magician. Jonathan had once confessed that Arabella had taken control of his wardrobe. If she is not here to do it, then Grant must take her place. He is a very poor substitute, but somehow, when Jonathan is dressed and the bunch of winter greenery has been pressed into his hands for the graveside, he reawakens and manages to stumble through the funeral. He doesn’t speak, he lets Henry make the eulogy, but he shakes hands and thanks people for coming. He stands by the new grave in the cold until Grant reminds him that he still has duties to perform. Henry cannot be left to deal with all the mourners alone. Grant guides him back to the house, one hand on the small of his back. He feels guilty for it. 

The only rule of what they did, of what they had, was that it never came to England. England was Arabella’s territory. Grant thinks that for Merlin what they had in the peninsula was a necessity, a comfort against the loneliness and loss. Away from the war, all those nights of shared, fierce passion, all those hot kisses and grasping hands, are an insubstantial nothing against the unassailable truth of Arabella and Jonathan. Grant and Merlin is a mere reflection. Here he is in Arabella’s territory and he should not trespass. If he has let it mean too much or let himself feel too much, it is his own concern. He had thought of sin, while the rightful claimant to all Jonathan’s affections was lying cold in the room above him. If he feels tormented now, it is a fitting punishment. 

After the funeral Arabella is gone from the house but her ghost lingers. When the guests have departed and Merlin has acquired a bottle of brandy (or two), Grant must guide him from the sopha chosen by Arabella, in the room where her books and drawings still linger, up the wooden stairs where she walked, past the curtains she brought from London, to the room she furnished for guests but is now her husband’s because he can no longer sleep in their marital bed. 

Merlin, swaying from the brandy, lurches closer as they reach the doorway. It is almost an embrace. Grant pushes him away, to the bed. Merlin cannot undress himself; he fumbles with buttons and asks for help. When Grant strips him of his waistcoat and shirt his clumsy fingers slide into Grant’s coat. It is unbearable. Grant cannot count the number of times he has done this: removed Merlin’s shirt with careful hands and unbuttoned his breeches with desire. It was a game then, both of them flushed and half laughing. Now he is only conscious of removing the clothes of another person’s husband. He cannot let Merlin touch him. He slides the clean nightshirt over Merlin’s head. “Please!” says Merlin, cupping his hand around Grant’s jaw. He shuts his eyes. He thinks that this, of all things, might finally break him. This is comfort for Jonathan and it hurts to deny him, but it was love for Grant and he cannot, he cannot let himself do this. 

He pulls away. Merlin… no… Arabella’s husband looks at him in confusion. 

Grant will leave in the morning. He must get away from here, from this frozen house full of sadness and memories. He cannot be only half loved, only half wanted, a substitute for a wife that will never be enough for either of them. He has, he realises, grieving of his own to do. He is a fool. 

A house after a funeral is a strange thing. Its occupants are bound and yet separate, grieving from one cause but all isolated in their individual grief. To grieve is to be alone. Outside, in the dark, it begins once more to snow.


End file.
